Rob Butcher, former Terrapin Masters coach and now manager for Rowdy Gaines Swimming and owner of Experience It, Inc. found the following Coaching Science study particularly interesting. The abstract discusses an experiment in which college swimmers sprinted faster doing fewer yards.

The abstracted article is titled "Swimming Fast" from Swimming Technique, August-October, 27-29. This study in which college swimmers participated in a reduced yardage, high-velocity training program for a college season, concluded that the specificity principle of training and the value of ultra-short interval work for sprint swimmers are supported. "With only one exception all performers produced personal best-times in all events at the championships. Statistically significant improvements were determined over race distances of 50, 100, and 200 yards while an interpolated 500 yd swim was also improved."

Rob Butcher adds his comments:
I saw this study about 10 months ago - it's really interesting. I think a setup like this works extremely well for sprinters. I also think there is a fine line of how much yardage is needed to maintain "feel" for the water.

About 5 weeks ago, I came across a Swimming Technique magazine that was dedicated to breastroke and how the best U.S. breastrokers are trained.

Dave Salo, who trains Amanda Beard (1996 Olympian) and Steve West (got 3rd in the 100 and 4th in the 200 trials), has this philosophy on training: only one practice per day and yardage should be kept to no more than 6500. He believes in component training. For example, an average practice for Amanda and Steve might be 5000 yards. Warmup is 800-1000. 3000 yards is spent on specific stroke techinque (kicking might be 1,200 yards, pullout drills might be 500: one arm drills might be another 500, skulling might be another 300, 400 might be turns, etc..) Of the 3000 yards, hardly any swimming is done as a complete stroke on intervals. The last 2000 might be a set of breastroke on intervals with freestyle mixed in. Of the 2000, 600-800 would be hard breastroke with the rest being some type of recovery.

Dave's attitude is that breastroke is a very difficult stroke and it's important to have good technique. Breaststroke and butterfly will cause fatigue in a hurry. If a swimmer continuously pounds out difficult sets, he or she is going to get tired and their stroke technique will break down. At that point he or she will be "perfecting" an incorrect stroke.

It's a very interesting philosophy and one being adopted by several top swimmers.